Why the world is a better place than before

[LordShiva]

Originally posted by Arrian
No, that's the aneeshmverse.

-Arrian

That was going to be my next post

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Arrian
Thus, while I'm not religious and generally dislike religion, I must concede that if there had been no religion as we know of it, we humans would've come up with some other reason to fight wars and whatnot.

And this I disagree with because I can't see it. I don't know how you can transform into a hierarchial society without religion unless war came first. But I don't see how war can come before religion, at least not full scale violent war. Many hunter-gatherer societies fought against each other but not like agricultural societies fought wars.

[Arrian]

Well, you could've corrected me and noted that in the aneeshmverse everything was ok until the muslims showed up, and finally really went to hell when whitey arrived. But you missed that chance too.

-Arrian

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by LordShiva


In the Kidiverse, did the people who lived in what is now India never suffer from poverty, starvation, persecution, etc., until Whitey showed up?

I don't know enough about the origins of hindu civilization to answer that.

[Arrian]

You really cannot conceive of war without religion, Kid? Wow. You don't have much of an imagination.

Tribe A wants to control the oasis. Tribe B has it now. Tribe A is larger and stronger.

Tribe A invades and conquers Tribe B, taking the Oasis.

Justification for that, to the extent that a justification was even needed, doesn't necessarily have to be religious... unless your definition of religion is extremely broad.

-Arrian

[aneeshm]

Originally posted by Arrian
No, that's the aneeshmverse.

-Arrian

Not really. I'm simply of the opinion that colonialism, of both the Islamic and the European variety, was tremendously detrimental to India. For instance, you will not find any mention of dire famines (the sort where people starved) in the ArthaShastra, simply because it most probably wasn't a concern at all. There was always enough food when the entire country was taken together, and if things got too bad, the state could always arrange to have food imported from nearby regions which did not experience crop failure (remember the advise about having a full treasury?).

On the other hand, the Bengal famine, caused by the economic policies of the British, killed 10 million people (33% of the population of Bengal at that time), lots of land was reclaimed by jungle, and it was so bad that some people were even eating the dead. Nothing this bad is mentioned in the old texts, probably because it didn't happen with such severity.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by aneeshm


I'm talking about a rather long time ago, when religion acted as progress, when it motivated progress. Till nearly a thousand years ago, it was a force for good. Since then, it lost touch with reality and the outside world, it decayed, became rigidly conservative, and itself declined. Even during its period of waning, it still acted as an inspiration for many.

I'm trying to say that right about now, it is picking up again, reforming itself, liberalising, and acting once more as a source of progress instead of as a retardant to it.




But the caste system has been outlawed for the past sixty years, and all Hindu organisations have unequivocally rejected it, and whatever does malnutrition have to do with religion?

I still doubt that it ever did any good, although it was inspiring no doubt.

[Arrian]

Originally posted by Kidicious


I don't know enough about the origins of hindu civilization to answer that.

Well played.

-Arrian

[Arrian]

Originally posted by aneeshm


Not really. I'm simply of the opinion that colonialism, of both the Islamic and the European variety, was tremendously detrimental to India. For instance, you will not find any mention of dire famines (the sort where people starved) in the ArthaShastra, simply because it most probably wasn't a concern at all. There was always enough food when the entire country was taken together, and if things got too bad, the state could always arrange to have food imported from nearby regions which did not experience crop failure (remember the advise about having a full treasury?).

On the other hand, the Bengal famine, caused by the economic policies of the British, killed 10 million people (33% of the population of Bengal at that time), lots of land was reclaimed by jungle, and it was so bad that some people were even eating the dead. Nothing this bad is mentioned in the old texts, probably because it didn't happen with such severity.

Dude, we're just yankin' your chain.

-Arrian

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Arrian
You really cannot conceive of war without religion, Kid? Wow. You don't have much of an imagination.

Tribe A wants to control the oasis. Tribe B has it now. Tribe A is larger and stronger.

Tribe A invades and conquers Tribe B, taking the Oasis.

Justification for that, to the extent that a justification was even needed, doesn't necessarily have to be religious... unless your definition of religion is extremely broad.

-Arrian

That's not how it happened though. Hunter-gatherer societies don't believe in ownership of land even (at least the nomadic tribes). They had no concept of conquering other people. They fought to solve disagreements.

[Arrian]

That's not how it happened though.

What? How do you know this? Why is my scenario not plausible?

Hunter-gatherer societies...

I'm not discussing h/g societies, but rather early agricultural ones. Sorry if that was confusing.

-Arrian

[General Ludd]

Originally posted by Arrian

I restricted my argument, as best I could, to reject the idea, originally posted by you, that life today is harder/worse than life 40k years ago. I never argued that life today was utopian. Further, there clearly ARE things about the simplicity of h/g life that one could find appealing. I simply believe that some people tend to gloss over any downside, idealizing the h/g existence.

Fair enough. For my part, I haven't argued that life 40k years ago was utopian either. All I would argue is that there are appealing things to it, as you would say, and that beyond that point it is also a sustainable way of life. Ours today isn't.

[Eli]

Originally posted by General Ludd
I'm not claiming that these things can only be done in primitive socities. It was a response to Eli claiming that without computers and modern media, that humans can only live boring, mundane, and unfulfilling lives. That for the 2 million years humans have been around before this century, enternainment consisted of nothing but staring contests with rocks.

I was saying something slightly more complex. But since I spread it around a few posts I guess it's easy to misunderstand. I'll explain my stance now.

A person's capacity to live a fulfilling life is determined by the person's personality and psychology, not by his circumstances. So the archetypal shallow, SUV driving, MTV watching, stuck in the rat race, compulsive consumer who's supposedly not living a fulfilling life will not be living such a life under any other circumstances. Such a person will never use the opportunities his circumstances offer him.

And on the other side of the spectrum, a deeper person with good introspection skills, who knows how to separate the wheat from the chaff, have meaningful relations with others, etc, will always use the opportunities his environment offers to live a more fulfilling life.

As a thought experiment, imagine a person's with Aristotle's personality living in a hunter gatherer society, in Aristotle's own time and in our society.

Generally speaking, curiosity about nature is probably the main defining characteristic of our Aristotles. A satisfaction of this desire goes most of the way towards making such a person's life a fulfilling one.

The hunter gatherer Aristotle will track the stars, observe animals, analyze rock formations, try to categorize people's personalities and generally philosophize about the universe.
But he will be alone. In his tiny society, he will probably be the only one who's interested in most of these stuff and almost the only one intellectually capable of doing so. He will also be the first who does so, so he'll be doing everything from scratch. He will have no paper or parchment on which to write, significantly hampering his efforts, maybe he'll go blind early and will not be able to continue with his studies.

The classical Aristotle will do what the historical Aristotle did. But he'll have other people, similar to him. He'll have the Lyceum, he'll have access to the body of knowledge gathered by previous generations, he'll have papyrus paper.

And the modern Aristotle will have modern universities and masses of people who share his interests. He'll have the internet and easy access to millions of studies, experiment results, etc. And thanks to specialization, he'll be able to devote most of his time towards satisfying his curiosity and therefore living a more fulfilling life. A life which will also be more painless, longer and more varied.

All three Aristotles can utilize a big percentage of the opportunities the universe gives them towards living more fulfilling lives, but modern Aristotles will have more of those opportunities than earlier ones.

The mistake that you're making is taking on one hand an idealized person in a hunter gatherer society who is perfectly "attuned" to life, and the average modern human with all his shortcomings. Why don't you compare apples to apples? Take some brutish, ignorant, shallow guy you know and imagine him in a prehistorical society. Will he be different?

[aneeshm]

Originally posted by Kidicious


I still doubt that it ever did any good, although it was inspiring no doubt.

I'd rather you study and read yourself, rather than have me preach. Why not go the the nearest bookstore and pick up a copy of Ashok Banker's book, "Prince of Ayodhya"? It's a modern re-telling of the Ramayana. Try it.

Or if you want something lighter and more fun, try to get a copy of Samit Basu's "The Simoqin Prophecies".

[Arrian]

Originally posted by General Ludd

Fair enough. For my part, I haven't argued that life 40k years ago was utopian either. All I would argue is that there are appealing things to it, as you would say, and that beyond that point it is also a sustainable way of life. Ours today isn't.

I know. Your argument was pretty simple. I don't agree with it, but I don't completely disagree either.

-Arrian